Farmers Emphasize Role of Undocumented Workers, Say Policymakers Ignoring It Are Committing 'Malpractice'

Farmers and agriculture advocates across the United States are renewing calls for immigration reform, warning that undocumented workers remain central to the nation's food supply and that policies failing to recognize that reality are harming farms, labor markets and consumers, according to a new sprawling report from Barn Raiser.

"It is this sort of great big fat open secret that everybody understands, that there's tons of undocumented folks working in production agriculture, and specifically the dairy industry," Wisconsin dairy farmer Hans Breitenmoser told the outlet. "It's malpractice if it's coming from our policymakers."

The comments reflect growing pressure from farmers who say the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, combined with long-standing problems in the legal visa system, has worsened labor shortages. Industry representatives told Barn Raiser that tighter enforcement and lower border crossings have reduced the flow of workers who have long filled difficult seasonal and year-round jobs.

Farmers say the H-2A visa program remains essential but inadequate. The program allows farms to hire seasonal foreign workers, but many growers describe it as costly, slow and poorly suited to industries such as dairy that require labor throughout the year. Bill Powers, president of the Delaware Farm Bureau, said the current system is "just not enough."

The administration has moved to make H-2A hiring cheaper and faster, as The Labor Department in October lowered wage requirements for some farm workers and streamlined visa processing, while acknowledging in a regulatory filing that the "near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens combined with the lack of an available legal work force" threatens agricultural production.

Those changes have, however, drawn opposition. The United Farm Workers and several farmworkers sued over the wage rule, arguing it could depress wages and expand reliance on temporary labor at the expense of domestic workers. UFW President Teresa Romero said the policy would make it "financially easier to hire foreign H-2A guest workers over U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents."

For growers, however, the shortage is immediate. Dave Marvel, a Delaware farmer, said fruit and vegetable operations "are not going to be able to move forward" without consistent foreign workers while Bruce Talbott, a Colorado orchard owner cited in related reporting, put it more bluntly: "Without guest workers, we can't farm."

Farm groups say broader reform remains unlikely this year, though lawmakers are considering narrower proposals focused on H-2A. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would have provided legal status for many existing farmworkers and expanded access to year-round labor, has passed the House twice but has not become law.